Attacks on the ADA Don’t Remove the Need and Responsibility for Web
Accessibility

By Nicolas Steenhout.

“Two bits of news about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in
the last couple weeks are of concern for people with disabilities. It
is also concerning for those of us working in the field of
accessibility…”

“…Maria Mendizabal, who is legally blind, claims that the Web sites
for companies such as Nike, 24 Hour Fitness, De Beers, Barney’s, Donna
Karan, and Kleinfeld Bridal aren’t compatible with screen-reading
software that translates the written content into either audio or
Braille…”

“…My thesis in this article is that CSS and the web as a whole put too
much power in the hands of authors and too little power in the hands
of users to allow effective personalization. Still, I will try to find
some practical guidelines that may facilitate better personalization
on the web…”

“When planning user research studies, there are four fundamental
principles from psychology that user researchers must know. These are:
your users do not think like you think; your users don’t have good
insight into the reasons for their behaviour; the best predictor of
your users’ future behaviour is their past behaviour; and your users’
behaviour depends on context.”

“Unexpected changes in your JavaScript code can be a real headache.
When working with objects, it can be even harder to prevent unintended
mutation. Zell Liew shows us some tricks (and libraries) to prevent
these unintended changes and ensure stability when working with
objects.”

“A talk in which I felt I had ben asked only to say things I hadn’t
said before. It was part of symposium at MIT arranged by Andy Van Dam
in honor of the 50th anniversary of Vannevar Bush’s visionary article
“As We May Think” in the Atlantic monthly in 1945. Various gurus from
the history of hypertext were assembled, to talk and be taped.”

“This post is about how we used the web to build a better magnifier.
Check it out (using Chrome or Opera on Android, due to it currently
being the only browsers which supports the needed APIs properly) and
please give us feedback to improve it further…”

“Tom Warren’s “Chrome is turning into the new Internet Explorer 6″ for
The Verge has a title that, to us front-end web developers, suggests
that Chrome is turning into a browser far behind in technology and
replete with tricky bugs…”

“…Once you understand how ‘intuitive’ works-what makes someone
perceive a design to be intuitive-it becomes easier to make the
decision as to whether an intuitive design is worth the extra effort.
The knowledge your users have when they arrive at the design (current
knowledge), what knowledge they’ll need to complete their tasks
(target knowledge), and what the design needs to do to help them
complete the task (the gap) are the key ingredients for making an
interface that seems ‘intuitive’ to your users.”

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